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Mobile Learning Institute for Teachers
What's the best way to introduce teachers to all that's possible using the latest communications technologies?
First, give them the same chance their students have to explore the latest computer, video, and mobile phone solutions. Then, give them time to consider the ways they can make use of these technologies and the encouragement and experience they need to begin integrating digital arts into their own curriculum.
This approach is at the heart of the Mobile Learning Institute's Professional Development Residency, a fifteen-hour hands-on session that makes it easy for middle-school and high-school teachers to learn all that's involved in offering curriculum-focused projects to their students.
This two- or three-day session typically combines hands-on project exploration with the chance for teachers to experience Mobile Learning Institute's approach to Project-Based Learning approach firsthand. In the process of creating their own digital films, websites, animations, or print creations, teachers have the opportunity to brainstorm and collaborate with colleagues and trainers, and develop practical experience with digital arts software programs.
Participants are expected to share in all of their successes and challenges, but no special computer or digital arts experience is required. Over the course of the workshop, they share ideas and learn from each other as they:
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Produce their own digital creations, in the process learning how to use computers to create a variety of artistic artifacts.
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Extend what they've learned by crafting individual unit plans that integrate the skills and approaches to which they've been introduced with their own themes and activities.
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Share planning and implementation ideas with their peers in a way that increases the likelihood their efforts will succeed in the classroom. When the workshop concludes, participating teachers receive a small library of district-appropriate unit plans that they designed together with their peers. |
Participating teachers can also choose from a host of supporting options that they can make use of after the professional development session concludes. These include: a Digital Unit Planning Toolkit that helps them extend what they've learned to their curriculum; digital arts textbooks from Pearson Education publishers Allyn & Bacon and Peachpit Press; and the opportunity to host their own, student-focused digital arts residency right in their classroom.
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